Political scientist and media critic

October 26, 2005

Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism

Writing on The New Republic blog The Plank, Jason Zengerle slams Jonah Golberg's new book:

I'd been thinking about doing a parody of conservatives' race to the bottom when it comes to turning out hysterical books on Hillary Clinton, but I see that some prankster has beaten me to it. Check out this brilliant parody. Getting Mussolini and Hillary into the same phrase--genius! And I love how it traces campaign finance reform's roots back to the Third Reich--the milk just shot out of my nose! I just hope Jonah Goldberg doesn't find out about it, lest he sic his lawyers on this comic genius.

But he still doesn't do justice to the astounding book that Jonah Goldberg is apparently writing -- check out the cover:

And here's the summary featured on Amazon:

Since the rise and fall of the Nazis in the midtwentieth century, fascism has been seen as an extreme right-wing phenomenon. Liberals have kept that assumption alive, hurling accusations of fascism at their conservative opponents. LIBERAL FASCISM offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg shows that the original fascists were really on the Left and that liberals, from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton, have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism.

Goldberg draws striking parallels between historic fascism and contemporary liberal doctrines. He argues that "political correctness" on campuses and calls for campaign finance reform echo the Nazis' suppression of free speech; and that liberals, like their fascist forebears, dismiss the democratic process when it yields results they dislike, insist on the centralization of economic decision-making, and seek to insert the authority of the state in our private lives--from bans on smoking to gun control. Covering such hot issues as morality, anti-Semitism, science versus religion, health care, and cultural values, he boldly illustrates the resemblances between the opinions advanced by Hitler and Mussolini and the current views of the Left.

Impeccably researched and persuasively argued, LIBERAL FASCISM will elicit howls of indignation from the liberal establishment--and rousing cheers from the Right.

In short, it's a book-length argument that liberals are like Nazis. Apparently Ann Coulter's Treason was too subtle and erudite for the conservative book market. Random House should be ashamed of itself.

Update 10/27: Paul astutely points out in comments that Goldberg has denounced Nazi analogies in the past. Let it rip, old Jonah!

1/5/01: "Nazism and the Holocaust are hardly joking matters. So let me be very careful in how I talk about this.

"If you honestly think John Ashcroft or elected Republicans in general are Nazis, then you are either a moron of ground-shaking proportions or you are so daft that you shouldn't be allowed to play with grown-up scissors."

..."Calling someone a Nazi is as bad as calling them a "nigger" or a "kike" or anything
else you can think of. It's not cute. It's not funny. And it's certainly
not clever. If you're too stupid to understand that a philosophy that
favors a federally structured republic, with numerous restraints on the
scope and power of government to interfere with individual rights or the
free market, is a lot different from an ethnic-nationalist, atheistic,
and socialist program of genocide and international aggression, you should
use this rule of thumb: If someone isn't advocating the murder of millions
of people in gas chambers and a global Reich for the White Man you shouldn't
assume he's a Nazi and you should know it's pretty damn evil to call him
one."

6/19/02: "[T]he use and
abuse of Nazi analogies has been a major peeve of mine for quite some
time

9/4/03: "Suffice
it to say that the Nazis weren't simply generically bad, they were uniquely
and monumentally evil, not just in their hearts but also in literally
billions of intentional, well-planned, and bureaucratized decisions they
made every day.

"And yet, in polite
and supposedly sophisticated circles in America today it is acceptable
to say George Bush is akin to a Nazi and that America is becoming Nazi-like.
Indeed, in certain corners of the globe to disagree with this assertion
is the more outlandish position than to agree with it."

..."When you say that anything
George Bush has done is akin to what Hitler did, you make the Holocaust
into nothing more than an example of partisan excess. Tax cuts are not
genocide, as so many Democrats have suggested over the years...

"Darn those
Republicans" does not equal "Darn those Nazis." The Patriot
Act is not the final solution. The handful of men in Guantanamo may not
all be guilty of terrorism, but it's more than reasonable to assume they
are. And no matter how you try to contort it, Gitmo is not the same thing
as Auschwitz or Dachau. There are no children there. You don't get carted
off to Cuba and gassed if you criticize the president or if you are one-quarter
Muslim. And, inversely, there was no reasonable justification for throwing
the Jews and the Gypsies and all the others into the death camps. The
Jews weren't terrorists or members of a terrorist organization. To say
that the men in Guantanamo -- or any of the Muslims being politely
interviewed by appointment -- are akin to the Jews of Germany is to
trivialize the experiences of the millions who were slaughtered. Even
if you think Muslims are being unfairly inconvenienced, when you say they
are the Jews of Nazified America you are in essence saying the worst crime
of the Holocaust was to unfairly inconvenience the Jews.

Update 11/1: I emailed Goldberg to ask about the text and he responded that he didn't write it. He didn't necessarily disavow it (he claimed not to have read it), but said he will not comment further until he finishes the book. So I will withhold further comment until the book is complete.

Comments

Brendan,

Where's the analysis? I just get "it's a book-length argument that liberals are like Nazis." What the hell is that? Did you read the book? I haven't. By construing the book in this way you imply that Goldberg is trying to say liberals will hunt down Jews and gas them. This is the type of politcal garbage I thought YOU were trying to identify and stop. Now you're a part of it.

You don't believe for one second that Goldberg believes liberals want to kill 12 million people. So why would you imply such? It's hard to view at it in any other light, since you provide no analysis of the book - just the "liberals are like Nazis" crap.

The book won't be out until May 2006, so I don't know why Believer is asking whether I've read it. I also don't know why he's getting mad at me for saying "it's a book-length argument that liberals are like Nazis." That's exactly what the summary suggests: " liberals... have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism"; "Goldberg draws striking parallels between historic fascism and contemporary liberal doctrine"; "he boldly illustrates the resemblances between the opinions advanced by Hitler and Mussolini and the current views of the Left." I'm not exactly out on a limb here.

As part of the liberal fascist establishment, I insist that this book be burned.

The truth is that books like this have been written and published for a long time; what's surprising is how mainstream they're becoming. When Ann Coulter is a mainstream conservative face, then you know we've taken a hard right turn...

Fortunately it seems that radical turn is finally taking the train off the tracks. The sleeping 60% that decides every election is slowly being turned against the cronyism, corruption, incompetence, and downright un-democratic methods of the current administration. At least that's my sense, not unmixed with a healthy dose of hope. It's darkest before the dawn, and all that jazz.

Not too mention the simple fact that Goldberg is a right-wing smear monger whose entire career has been built on liberal character assassination.

No one who has ever read his work would be surprised by this latest installment of bile, nor should they be. He has made a number of arguments in past articles and on-air that draw a clear line between Nazis and Liberals.

From the horses mouth, "the use and abuse of Nazi analogies has been a major peeve of mine for quite some time. " — Tyranny, Shmyranny, NRO, June 19, 2002.

Not quite. It's a book-length argument that liberals share some ideas with Nazis. Jonah Goldberg is not someone I sympathize with, but he at least deserves an accurate description of his work, as smeary as it is.

In short, it's a summary of a book that hasn't been published, that you haven't read, and know nothing about. I'll bet you review movies by their lobby posters, too.

As for your claim of Jonah's hypocrisy, are you denying the fact of the existence of those comparisons and allusions Jonah referenced? Does the fact that he disapproves of what reasonable people would agree are odious and inaccurate comparisons a priori preclude him from being permitted to attemptto comparable historical comparisons concerning the people who made them? Is there some sort of codicil to the First Amendment that provides for "Hitler for me, but not for thee?"

Of course I haven't read the book. That's quite obvious from the post -- no one has. But the author always has at least veto power over promotional copy for a book. If Goldberg wanted to get the text on Amazon changed, he could. And he hasn't. What inferences should we draw from that? In all likelihood, the wording is taken straight out of his book proposal.

And you know this, I assume, because you have ironclad control over the promotional copy your publisher puts out on your books. That would be impressive because I've been in publishing for going on thirty years and that's damned rare.

And I notice you're evading the point. What's your authority for the blanket and inaccurate statement that the author always has at least veto power over promotional copy for a book"? Because not only is that untrue, I'll add, based on my direct personal experience, that once the book gets into the hands of marketing, in many cases not even the editor retains that kind of input.

The point remains, you launched this rant against an unfinished manuscript that you had not read, and didn't even bother to try to check it with the subject of your story until you had published it. Are you trying to make the NY Times look good? Where's Harold Raines when we need him?

Since the book hasn't been published, I can't really criticize it. However, I would like to point out that the charge is nothing new. It is the claim that various social welfare programs are somehow "fascist." To quote Herber Hoover: "Among the early Roosevelt fascist measures was the National Industry Recovery Act (NRA) of June 16, 1933 .... These ideas were first suggested by Gerald Swope (of the General Electric Company)....[and] the United States Chamber of Commerce. During the campaign of 1932, Henry I. Harriman, president of that body, urged that I agree to support these proposals, informing me that Mr. Roosevelt had agreed to do so. I tried to show him that this stuff was pure fascism; that it was a remaking of Mussolini's "corporate state" and refused to agree to any of it. He informed me that in view of my attitude, the business world would support Roosevelt with money and influence. That for the most part proved true." Now if Hoover had had his way we might still be in the depression.

Now you can hardly accuse liberals of militarism, chauvanism, or invading countries that aren't any threat to us. Nor can you accuse them of arresting people without trial, holding them for years without a charge, and torturing them. I would recommend that people look up an essay by George Orwell on the use of fascism as an epithet used against anything that one doesn't like.

Mr. Reasonable Himself? Obviously a self-imposed title.
You all wrote all of this before the book was even published? I notice no one has written a word here since. Now that it has been, it's a great example of the old addage that if the facts are against you, smear your accuser. The fact is that Goldberg's book overwhelmingly documents the reality that liberals/progressives don't want to acknowledge. As liberals call Conservatives fascists and nazis, those terms more accurately portray the attitudes and behaviors of their own political ancestors than those of Conservatives. Your attempt at preventive war against Goldberg's book is a bust. I know you're too stubborn but to rarely change your mind about anything, but liberals should read it and learn something, even if it's painful.

This is old business, but you really should read what SMART conservatives...ya know, not embarrasments like Goldberg and the other shmucks at NR (the folks at "American Conservative" are an example) have to say about this silly book. It's a deeply, deeply silly book. Liberals and fascists share some ideas. WHEEE!!!!

Of course, the traits that people usually think of when they say "fascist" are hypernationalism and militarism. Those are sins of the RIGHT in America, which is why they get called fascists. It's certainly a sloppy, libelous thing to call someone, but "turning the tables" in the way Goldberg does by pointing out that fascism got some ideas from socialism and so liberals share ideas with Hitler...like ya know, vegitarianism (that's really in the book)...is equally sloppy and libelous. And funny. But in the "laughing AT him" kind of way.